“You were not supposed to leave anyone behind.”
“Don't hang that on me. I was set to discharge the barrel in the senator's direction so that the police would peg your father as the shooter. However no one told me to expect Little Miss Honeydew busting onto my scene once again,” Rowan snaps back at me. “You tell me what happened because that silly little bitch almost got me killed.”
Ro and I are up in each others grills hard enough to start tearing into each other. I don't hit women, not out of anger, but it's all I can to to keep from murdering my assistant and friend for slandering Harley like that. And she comes right back at me, urging me, daring me to do it. Like she'd enjoy it. Strike has to step in and cool our jets before we go at it.
“Balance, boss. You can't do anything for your girl if your head ain't in balance.”
As usual, his soothing words on my ear snap something in my head that puts me right back to chill and I step away from Rowan.
“You should be thanking me, not castigating me,” Rowan says. “Your pimp-ass father saw his chance and had Honeydew by the wrist dragging her off.”
I clench and unclench, determined not to let her rile me.
“If I hadn't shot him,” she says, “he'd have her strapped down in some dungeon again.”
“And in the meantime you managed to get her arrested for your shot.”
“I managed to make it look like he'd shot himself just so he could scream victim.”
“Why didn't you take Harley out with you instead of leaving here there?”
“Are you freaking serious right now? I'm going to get myself twenty five to life saving poor little waifs and strays who should stay home with their crochet? No, I think I'll leave that shit to you, Cole.”
“If anyone could handle twenty five to life it's you, Ro,” Strike says, immediately defusing the situation like the relationship bomb disposal expert he is. It's the only way this threesome has survived so long and we aren't all dead and buried somewhere – thanks to Strikey.
I allow myself to relax and join the others with a smile.
“What the fuck was she doing there?” Rowan demands. Strike shoots her a glare but too late, Harley's terrified beautiful face comes back to me and I'm livid again.
“Somewhere along the line we got double-crossed. We can figure that out, but first we gotta plan how we're getting Harley out of custody. If I have to hire every mercenary sitting home with a beer on the couch, do it. Get them all out of retirement until I have a private fucking army of renegades to bust her out.”
“I'll leave you two to do what you do best and get back to running Illicit. Rio and the Caribbean aren't going to open themselves.”
I sink into my chair with my head in my fists, almost ready to give up. Almost. Because that's the one thing I'll never, ever do. I fight until the bittersweet finale.
“We got rid of the blackmail at least,” Strike says.
“Yeah but the hospital says my bastard father has barely a flesh wound. The asshole is probably already discharged seeing as I won't be paying his bills. And with him still out there I can never let up with watching over Harley.” I forget to mention how much she hates me for that.
Strike does everything aside from strapping me into one of the Saint Andrew's crosses to prevent me going down to the courthouse for Harley's arraignment.
“I don't give a fuck what happens to me. Or even if I lose Illicit. All I care about is Harley and getting her out of a place she has no business being.”
The lawyer looks grim when we meet her in a private interview room, away from prying eyes. She whispers that a State senator was shot through the skull close to where Harley was arrested.
“What a fuck up.”
“Yes,” she agrees without knowing what I mean. “Because Harlow will be charged with the attempted murder of her own stepfather and the murder of a state senator. It might behoove us to try for a plea of temporary insanity.”
“No freaking way,” I growl so viciously it makes the woman startle. “I'm not saddling her with that life sentence. You better come up with something better than that.”
“I doubt it would have stuck anyhow,” she says. “Unless we can find some proof that someone else could have been there, then I don't see many options.”
“Did you get ballistics?”
“What will the bullet prove without the gun to match it to?”
“Because just maybe it isn't the same bullet in both men.” I'd like that information myself.
“I still don't understand.”
“You don't need to. All you need to do is throw it out there. Because I'll tell you a little secret – I was there. And if you don't get Harlow out of this, I'm going to stand up in the middle of your trial and tell the whole fucking world it was me.”
The judge sets bail at ten million dollars and home detention. Then backtracks because the girl can't go home to her parents seeing as she shot one of them and has no other family. I step forward without a second thought. This once I'm admitting to being her brother.
Chapter NINE
I'm fully expecting Harley to be livid with me, holding me responsible for her predicament and being under arrest for my failed attempt at framing our father figure. And more enraged at being forced to live with me 24/7 when she wanted nothing other than to never see me again as long as she lives, or longer.
But as soon as the guys setting up the ankle bracelet have departed, she moves to the sofa beside me and curls up in the crook of my arm. I squeeze her so tight in my arm she ought to burst like the juicy soft fruit she is.
“It's okay Cole, I'm fine now I'm here with you. I can feel myself getting tougher through all this. A little like you must have had to.” I still can't bear to imagine what she went through.
“I'm kind of getting used to being restrained and humiliated, although usually I'm wearing better outfits.”
Only Harley could be so tough as to make a funny out of a crap situation. She never stops amazing me.
“Speaking of outfits – You might need some new ones.”
I had never gotten the chance to present her with the Burberry shopping bags full of clothes and accessories I had such a good time buying for her at the glam store.
“Cole, you really didn't have to.” For a moment it seems like she's going to refuse to accept them.
“Actually I did. And I loved it.”
It thrills me how her eyes light up when she pulls the coat and purse from the giftwrap, then the suede knee boots. While she runs to try them on, I remember my lascivious thoughts when I bought them of Harley on her knees wearing only those sexy little boots. Fuck, my dick starts grinding into my pants and I leap up from the sofa before Harley comes back and notices. I don't want her losing it with me all over.
No matter how many times she tells me we can't be together, I doubt my body will ever stop having the same reaction to her. I want her so bad it's like being ravaged by bears. It's not only that I hunger for her hard little peaks between my lips while my cock saws into her perfect tight but soft tunnel. I want to envelop her inside my arms and crush her tight to me so that nothing can come for her ever again.
But it seems that from the moment I came back into her life, she's endured nothing but misery after hell. None of it her fault, all down to me. It fucking crushes me that I'm responsible for all this shit and haven't been able to take care of her, despite the round the fucking clock surveillance.
What does a guy have to do? At least with the new jewelry, she can't take off and get into any more shit. This place is wired like a fucking time bomb and no one can get to her here even if they all know where she is. The big problem is the Senator's people, who'll be out for fifty shades of fucking revenge as I didn't complete the mission he ordered and am now shacked up with the perp they're accusing of murdering him.
It doesn't look good for me at all. But all that matters is she's here. In my arms (although far from the way I want her in my arms). And with the faint hint of a h
appy face playing around those divine lips and heavenly violet eyes. If she looks at me with anything less than the hatred of before, I'll go happy.
Then she comes back wearing the outfit and she's taken off the sweats he had on because they must have ruined her look. She's wearing next to nothing under that short pink raincoat. Her hair tumbling down, those suede knee boots she looks like some sexy British agent and my cock is raging. I pull her back into the relative innocence of my arm before she notices how much I want to possess her.
Harlow
There is no place in the world I feel more secure than nestled into Cole's chest wall. His arm encircled me like a band of steel and a strange warm glow suffused my body.
Oh yeah, I remember that feeling. It's happiness. The sensation wrapped around me and grew into a euphoric wave of total bliss. It was a massive pendulum swing back from the grim misery I'd endured the last few days. The ugliness of a jail cell sucks all the life out of your soul.
Snuggled warm against Cole, sleep descended gradually on me like soft snow falling. But in the quietest hour, I was wide awake with my body in a raging fever. I lay very still, wondering if I was sick with something, not wanting to wake Cole who was still holding me safe in his grip.
The heat pounding at the edges of my skin was blistering. My breasts were rising and falling of their own accord, pulsating with pressure, so close to the solid curve of his muscle. The worst pain was between my legs. An agonizing throb of hunger. What the hell was happening to me?
I shifted slightly and Cole gripped me close, protecting me even in his sleep. His powerful hand on the back of my hip pulled me to him and my pussy responded with a demanding tug that send ripples through my clit and thighs.
No, no, no. Why couldn't my body accept that this was not the way it was going to be? The signals from my brain weren't getting through my heatwave of desire.
“Harley,” Cole moaned low, but when I stretched my head up to look at his rugged face, the stubble on his razor jaw coming in, I knew he was still asleep.
He groaned out my name again. Dreaming. Dreaming of me. Oh my god. I instinctively pulled away, throwing myself out of the solid bond of his arm muscle. The enormous bulge straining at his pants told me what kind of dream he was having.
“Babe, you okay?” Cole was alert in an instant and checking all around the area as he'd obviously been trained.
“What's your blood type?” I demanded.
“Huh? Okay, I'll play. Type A. Is there a prize?”
“We can't do this,” I cried. “It's wrong.”
“Not this again, Harley.” Cole's groan was entirely different but the swelling at his groin was the same. “I told you I cannot be in the same house as you.”
“Does it seem that you have much choice right now?”
“Then maybe they'll have to take me back to jail.”
“You'd prefer to be locked in hell than here with me?”
“Cole, it's wrong.”
“Stop it Harl. Just stop with the stepbrother shit, okay. You gotta stop running from us.”
“Brother. Not step, just straight up brother.”
“Okay now you're weirding me out.”
Cole got up and walked across the room but I saw he was trying to disguise the massive pulsation in his pants.
“You and I are full blood siblings.”
The roar of his laugh was like an amused lion.
“It's true. My mother showed me the proof.”
“Your mother told you this? Great. Then it must be true.”
“She wouldn't lie to me. Not about this.”
“What proof, no, don't tell me, because even if it's a royal decree from the Queen of fucking England, I don't believe it.”
“It's a hospital DNA test on two siblings. You and me. You have to believe it.”
“Bullshit. In my life, I've seen enough so-called proof and official paperwork from the highest government offices that's nothing but lies. Everything can be forged and probably is for all we know.”
“We have to accept reality even if it's not the way we want it.”
“NO!” This roar was an underground detonation that shook our foundations. “You have to accept the reality of your feelings and stop running.”
“I have to leave. I can't stay here like this.”
“Don't be fucking ridiculous. They'll grab you before you hit the corner.”
“I don't care, I can't deal with this, it's too much. I have to go.”
I didn't make it anywhere near the elevator. Cole was across the room in an instant, pulling me to him and covering my mouth with his. My instinct to try to fight him off was squashed by the surging lust rattling through my limbs. My pussy tugged toward him, craving and pleading to be plundered. Only when he pushed deep inside me, stretching the ache open would my body be satiated. My mouth surrendered to the force of his tongue delving into me, taking full control of my responses.
He was impossible to deny. The taste of his insistence was too delicious to resist and I released my body backwards into his strong arms like a tango dancer. Beams of light pulsed down my thighs as the need to be joined with Cole completely overwhelmed me.
Maybe I'd stay here in the penthouse as his prisoner forever and no one would ever discover our illicit relationship. And if this was to be the last time I'd know the joy of a man inside my body before a life sentence, then there was no other man on earth I wanted than Cole.
He released my mouth to cover my skin with his lips, trailing a line of nips and sucks down the sensitive curve of my neck making me shudder. His hands moved from their grip on the small of my back, up my rib cage to rip apart the lapels of the pretty pink trenchcoat he bought me and free my naked breasts. He mounded the undersides together, crushing both firm peaks into each other and pulling them into his hot mouth.
“Ohhh. Agrhh.” I couldn't stop moaning and thrashing my head, greedy for more.
My hands cupped the back of his strong head and pulled his mouth into me, wanting more of my body covered by his expert tongue. I was wearing nothing but a small pair of underwear under the short coat and I knew how swiftly he'd deal with those. I had to stop this but I couldn't. I didn't want to. All I wanted was Cole. He's all I’ve ever wanted. I was completely lost.
Then I had to taste him again, I dragged his head back up to connect with mine and he plunged into my mouth. His tongue entwined around mine, swirling and pulling me deeper into his lust.
He could not get enough of me at once. Like a wild man he tore his mouth back down my neck, my chest and when he sucked my nipple into his lips, laving his tongue across the ravaged pellet I cried out in divine agony for more. My inner thighs were tingling for the touch of his fingers as soon as he pulled apart the short coat. One hand shoving the underside of my breast up toward his mouth, then strumming the lonely nipple of the other.
Without detaching his mouth from me, he rose from the sofa, carrying me with him. My legs were wrapped around his solid band of pelvis and he delved in to tear back the edge of my soaked panties. I came completely undone the instant he stroked across the hard triangle protruding eagerly. One strum set me aflame.
“Please,” I wailed. “Please Cole.”
“What?” he slammed my back to the wall and growled into my neck. “Tell me what you want. Whatever you want babe and I'll do it.”
He yanked my thigh up around the undulating iron of his abdomen and swirled his fingers into my juices. I gasped from the searing white sparks of pleasure shooting down my legs and up to my eyelids.
“Tell me,” Cole growled like a wolf into my neck.
“I want you.” I couldn't speak. I could barely breathe.
I clutched my small fingers around his solid neck, his agile hip, trying to pull him all the way inside my skin. As though we could merge into one pulsating pleasure being.
“Again,” he roared softly against my skin.
“I want you, please. Please come inside me.” My breath hitched as I let out a pa
nt of words.
He tugged his sweatpants down over his smooth slender hips and freed his throbbing huge cock. The most astoundingly perfect blade of solid steel. I arched my back against the wall, spreading my glistening slit as wide open as possible as he circled the perfect velvet head in my soaking folds.
The loud ding of the elevator sounded at the moment he positioned his iron shaft at my entrance.
“Cole, we have a problem.”
Chapter TEN
Cole
She's gone from under me before I even register the intrusion. I'd been lost in that unbelievable body, perfectly soft and firm at the same time. So divinely eager to take me inside her, I wanted to hold off and make the sweet agony last forever. I also wanted to ram into her and claim her once and for all. Lost in that delirium I would not even have noted the elevator sliding open. The loud bell seems to chime like gunshots in my ears over and over.
I turn around to face the trespasser, still in shock at Harley vanishing. My cock is pounding for release so violently it's an effort to focus on what Rowan is telling me.
My mind is in a haze like I've been drugged. Harl is my own personal addiction and all I can think of is possessing her completely. Having her push me off and run down the hall to lock herself into a bedroom has thrown my mind and body into a stupor.
“Are you listening to me?” Rowan snarls.
If she detects the heavy aroma of sexual hunger pervading the large living area, she's pretending not to.
“Someone is poaching our staff. Half the girls quit tonight, saying there's a new club in town and their clients are moving over.”
“What? What new club? Whose?”
“I don't know yet. Strike and the guys are on it.”
“Fuck this is all we need.”
“Yeah, especially when you just blew ten million bucks on rescuing your, er, sister from The Castle.”
“Don't go there Ro, or you're gonna regret it.”
“There's this awesome image of her serving as hucow for the other inmates. Where is the little princess? Not run out on you yet?”
Club ILLICIT 3: Billionaire Bonded Romance Page 5
